Tag Archives: movie

Joe Pickett by C.J. Box – Book to Screen

Joe Pickett C.J. Box CJ Box
C.J. Box’s “Joe Pickett” … starring a bunch of nobodys

Have you picked up on the Joe Pickett TV series on Amazon Prime?  I just did last night.  Having already made my way through three-quarters of the current available books … I gotta tell ya … the Joe Pickett TV series is a hotdog!

I’ll explain what I mean by ‘a hotdog’ — but first, I need to back-up a little …

Ten-plus years ago I couldn’t be less interested in Westerns.  I had seen few such movies or TV shows — as far as I was concerned, they were okay — but for the most part … they didn’t catch my interest.  Then, one evening, one of my piping students turned me on to westerns.  He had received his first set of bagpipes — and new pipes need a lot of work to get set up right — so I suggested that we book an evening where he brought his instrument, snacks and a stack of movies.  We watched True Grit (remake) and Appaloosaand I was HOOKED!  (Or maybe ‘roped in’ is more genre correct?)  I have since come to not just enjoy but also value this section of the big-screen selection.

(Side Note — In my new exploration, I’ve found the source of scenes and characters in Firefly from Westerns and other Sci-Fi movies.)

Longmire Craig Johnson
Craig Johnson’s “Longmire” staring Robert Taylor, Katee Sackhoff, and Lou Diamond Phillips

In more recent years, I was given solid recommendations about the Longmire TV series, so I bookmarked the seasons in my To-Watch List.  These kept getting passed over, and a few years ago I decided to give them a try.  With the first few episodes I COULDN’T GET ENOUGH!  I fairly well binge-watched  the seasons back-to-back.

Once through the TV series, I wanted more — yep, I loved  watching Longmire!  So I thought to give the original Craig Johnson books a try.  I soon found that the TV show and the source material had little to do with each other.  Book one, in my opinion, was so miserable I didn’t want to give the second book a chance — I had excitedly downloaded them all from my library, and I  remorselessly deleted the entire collection.  Sorry, Craig — them’s the breaks!

Still, I wanted more Longmire’ism … a modern western based around a flawed yet well oriented good-guy, finding his way through life while striving for justice in the face of complex moral situations controlled by underhanded, devious bad-guys.

A short time later, I was given the suggestion to try the Joe Pickett books by C.J. Box — a few beautifully descriptive lines were even read to me, and I soon dove into the debut story.  The work quickly revealed that the stories are thought provoking and well paced between exposition and thrills.  The main character is easy to enjoy and endearing in his foibles.  Box writes pleasing storylines with an array of characters — better than that are his beautiful descriptions, usually presenting a moment in nature.  I wanted something like Longmire, and I began to find this in the Joe Pickett books with a whole new character to appreciate.

(Side Note — C.J. Box’s ability to release one book a year in chronological story order — book #1 in 2001, book #2 in 2002, and so on — has also been impressive.)

(Additional Side Note — I think the Longmire TV series ‘borrowed’ story elements from the Joe Pickett books to make what they couldn’t out of the Longmire stories.  There are too many things in Season 01 that are identical in the early C.J. Box books … or to say, too similar to be a coincidence.)

Jesse Stone Robert B. Parker
Robert B. Parker’s “Jesse Stone”, starring Tom Selleck

As I progressed through the books — in my case, I have been consuming the audiobooks — I thought that this character and these stories would make for a good TV series.  Or maybe a couple of good quality movies … maybe made-for-TV, similar to the Jesse Stone installments.  What better time than now to feature a down-to-earth do-right family-man through a “neo-western“.

Around the release of book 22 or 23 I picked up that these Joe Pickett was going to get made into a TV series — I was thrilled!  Someone read my mind, came up with a bunch of production money, and were on their way to fulfil my wish — that was considerate of them!

Jack Carr James Reese The Terminal List
Jack Carr’s “The Terminal List”, starring Chris Pratt

Last evenings I finished Season 01 of the Jack Carr / James Reese / Terminal List on Amazon Prime — books 1 through 5 and the recently released 6 had been GREAT!  Out of curiosity, I scrolled down through the TV series listings and … to my surprise … happened to find the “Joe Pickett” TV series!  I had been expecting to wait and hear more about my favourite fictional game warden hitting screens, and IT’S ALREADY BEEN MADE!!!

Clicking the link, I was excited to see that Season 01 is available now through 30June2023, and I’m right in time for the release of Season 02 on 04July2023!  Between last night and today, I watched through the first 3 episodes of Season 01.  Before finishing Episode 01 I found myself frankly disappointed.  In my opinion … the Joe Pickett TV series is terrible — I forced myself to finish Episode 03 — and I’m giving up on the show.

The Expanse James S.A. Corey Sci-Fi
James S. A. Corey’s “The Expanse”, starring a bunch of people you don’t know — but the show is so incredibly great YOU DON’T CARE!

Like books, just because you start a TV series doesn’t mean you are required to finish it.  Each of us only live so long, and if the book you’re reading isn’t pleasing … move on to another.  I have better things to watch — like The Expanse, which I’ve also been reading (audiobook) — and my viewing time is better spent with something that I find makes me happy.  So in this case, I’d rather preserve perception of Joe Picket that I have from the books than the garbage the producers are trying to pass-off as the TV show.

I think this IMDB review does a good job of introducing the conflict …


DiCaprioFan13 / 4 October 2022

“Joe Pickett is a must watch for any western fan. It seems most people who’ve watched it seem to really like it. The only people who seem not to like it are fans of the book that are mad that it isn’t exactly like the book.


Yosemite Sam‘Not exactly the same as the book’ … really, how hard is it to get a modern-day story based in reality reasonably correct?  The book started at an exciting moment that would have been a great hook for the TV show — NOPE, they didn’t do that!  The pistol Joe Pickett is carrying is the wrong type, but I guess strapping a revolver on him makes more of a Western impression?  Giving TV-Joe the less-expensive problematic truck that book-Joe distinctly complained about was not good enough for the production budget?  Fitting TV-Joe with the dog that book-Joe doesn’t get until much-later in the series does … what … win cute-points with the unfamiliar audience?  Putting the Pickett family in a nicer (2-story) house on a better piece of property located outside of town was somehow more TV-savvy?  In the books, the (single-story, cramped) crummy house provided through his low-paying state job speaks to his humility and his wife’s love of Joe superseding materialism.  I should also mention that his mother-in-law, Missy, is all wrong and April (their adopted daughter) arrives too early.

For me though, this isn’t the crux of the issue — this isn’t why I find it disappointing, or why another viewer like DiCaprioFan13 might think that Joe Pickett book readers are somehow ‘angry’.
(Not to mention that it seems DiCaprioFan13 makes redundant use of “it seem/s”, seemingly in close proximity … doesn’t it seem like that would make someone itch?)

So what do I mean when I say that
the Joe Pickett TV series is a hotdog”?

hotdog
There comes a point where you just can’t bring yourself to eat these things anymore…

Have you ever heard the humor-intended line about what hotdogs are made of?  At the end of the work-day in a butcher’s shop, the butcher sweeps the floor, and what they collect in their dust pan is what they use to make hotdogs — dirt, dust, and discarded bits of bone and meat … or what previously looked like something edible.

I will 100% own that I am biased by the C.J. Box / Joe Pickett books.  Yes, I am one of the fans of the books who are unhappy — not because the show ‘isn’t exactly like the book‘, but because it is such a terribly missed opportunity at making a good TV series out of a good book series.

Michael Dorman
Have you seen this man …. ANYWHERE?!?

The collection of actors in the show seem to be C, D, E, and F-List nobodys — most of whom I have never seen, including the lead played by Michael Dorman.  The choices someone made for the characters — the changes loosely based on the books — has turned them into amateurish versions of the characters.  This book series seems to have received the same wacko-treatment Disney has been applying to Star Wars since buying the franchise — changing the characters for agenda-driven reasons instead of serving the previously developed story, and telling the established fanbase what they should like.

My general impression of Joe in the books is that he is more more … manly … than the Joe actor in the TV series.  I’m not saying he’s duke-dashing with a chiseled physique and Tom Selleck’s chest carpet, but somehow more … masculine.  I don’t know how better to say it, but this guy seems like a +90% self-doubting beta-male.  When you are familiar with the characters in the books, and see how they’re changed in the TV show … one could easily form the impression that specific choices were made in attempt to satiate the new politically-correct mob.

Freedom Arms Model 83 .500 WE
Big Bad bah-dah BOOM!

In the books, Joe and his wife are a team — he confides in her, and she places her trust in him.  However, in the TV show, Marybeth steers Joe.  Nate Romanowski in the books is a ruggedly handsome, tall, blond, white man, former special forces.  Alternatively, in the TV show Nate is “… one part mystic, one part hardened criminal. He was a survivalist who (lives) off the grid deep in the woods …” and is played by a black man (and not the only character who has undergone such changes, clearly for the sake of ardent “Political Correctness!”).  When Joe meets Nate, he conducts himself more like a ghetto gangster than the way any former special forces soldier would — brandishing a pistol that doesn’t appear to be the celebrated Freedom Arms Model 83 .500 WE Nate is famous for in the books (until switching to another similar revolver around book 12).

C.J. Box
C.J. Box … YEE-HAWWW!!!

Supposedly there are funny bits in the TV show that weren’t in the books.  Three episodes and I never caught one of those.  Is there a guide that tells viewers where those are?  I mean, it makes sense, right — the producers are already telling you what you should think society should be like … so why not this funny-bits guide, too?  Frankly, were I C.J. Box, I’d feel worse about this show than finding out I had permanent podium / lectern and basic geographical errors in my books*.
(* see below)

I have no idea what C.J. Box’s opinion is of the Joe Pickett TV series.  Maybe he likes it, or — and I wouldn’t be surprised — maybe he’s contractually obligated to say he approves of it.  But personally I’m sorry for him, and I’m sorry for Joe Pickett.  Compared to the books, the TV show is a hotdog — floor sweepings, collected up and shoved into a casing, sold as being ‘good for you’ when really its* only worth being dumped into the garbage.
(* that was intentional)


podium
People stand on podiums
Speakers stand at or behind lecterns

I would be remiss if I didn’t say there have been a few things that have made me twitch from the Joe Pickett books.

Recently I started book #15.  It was only just before this that C.J. Box, his editor, or his wife seemed to get the difference between a podium and a lectern corrected — although in American English “podium” has sadly come to mean “lectern” through  further dumbing-down of the language.  Here’s a tip — DO NOT STAND ON A LECTERN — it’s dangerous, you could get hurt.  I know I won’t make that mistake a third time.  Alternatively, under most circumstances, it should be safe to speak standing behind a podium.

Paul Bunyan Babe the blue ox
Recent photo from Bremerton, WA

One or more geographical errors would have been corrected if someone just looked at a map.  While reading (listening to) an early book, I laughed sardonically when some hitmen were approaching Bremerton, WA ‘from the east’ driving their SUV, arriving in a logging town full of modern lumberjacks in a bar.  Apparently this SUV has some sort of non-factory amphibious feature — pontoons perhaps?  I presume the nearby US Navy base would like to know about this technology.  I also suspect it’s the United States Navy that is hiding all those lumberjacks, too!  The secret is now out … you read it here first at BagpiperDon.com … Area 51 hides the flying saucers and aliens, while the Bremerton Navy base hides all the loggers!

amphibious vehicle
We’re headed to Bremerton, boys!

 

Anna And The Apocalypse (2017)

Imagine it . . .  You’re an angsty high school student in a small town, heading toward your imminent graduation and thinking about your future.  You’re hassled by your principal and being hounded by your ex, while your best friend won’t just come out and tell you that they’re in love with you.  What’s worse, it’s the night of the school Christmas pageant when the zombie apocalypse begins.  Maybe this isn’t you, but it is Anna And The Apocalypse (2017) — so break out  the melee weapons!

Anna And The Apocalypse is a huge ball of fun for the right viewer.  It’s a musical with dance numbers, set in high school during Christmas right at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse.  Frankly, I was playing it and barely watching when, about 20 minutes into the film, a zombie was killed in a hilarious and absolutely new and inventive way as far as zombie films go.  The music is also quite good and the song settings is perfect.  Oh, and did I forget to mention that the story is set in Scotland?!?

Anna And The Apocalypse just may be my new favourite Christmas movie.  My rating is Green Ooze, and Anna And The Apocalypse can be found on my list of BagpiperDon’s Favourite Zombie Movies!

Links

Overlord (2018)

Overlord 2018Frankly, I’m not 100% sure the 2018 D-Day film Overlord is a zombie film.  But, given all that encompasses how-zombies-come-to-be in films these days, I’m not 100% sure it isn’t.  So I’m reviewing Overlord just to make sure it’s covered.

The basic premise of Overlord is that on the eve of D-Day, as some of the pre-invasion sabotage work that was planned and performed, a paratrooper squad is sent to destroy a German radio tower located in an old church. Their plane is shot down and crashes, and a contingency of the remaining squad continues forward with the mission.  As they head toward the village where the church is located they run into Chloe — a young French woman who is a badass.  As the few paratroopers work their way into the church, they find that it’s not just a Nazi radio location but that they’ve been conducting extensive experiments in the basement.

Backpacking through Europe

I’ll stop here to avoid any spoilers — but in truth you really can’t state any spoilers about this film BECAUSE WE’VE ALL SEEN THIS BEFORE.

A badass with a flamethrower that is!

The film stars a bunch of people whom we’ve never really seen.  They do a fine job at acting and it’s nice to see unfamiliar faces — otherwise this would have starred Ray StevensonJohn Turturro, and/or Tom Sizemore.  In addition, it has directors and writers and people we don’t know … but the one familiar name is J.J. Abrams.  I draw attention to this because I’m surprised his name is at all attached to this!

This film is familiar and predictable.  Apparently it had a budget of $38 million … off hand … I don’t know why.  I think they were going for a 1960s-1970s film noir thing — and they nailed it without all the dead-space that Quentin Tarantino fluffs his films with — and I think they were going for a B-movie feel, and it works in that way.  But $38 MILLION?!?  And here I thought governments were wa$teful!!! Seriously, this film ought to have been made for half with about $20 million going to creating jobs.  And yet, it made $41.9 million at the box office … which $4M is a lot of money … but for films with this sort of budget, my understanding is that profiting so little makes it a financial flop.

Castle Wolfenstein
Remember this?

Frankly — speaking of Ray Stevenson — although it takes place in modern-day, I think Outpost (2008) was a better film.  I could see Overlord as a  back-story film, and it sure as hell would be better than Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013), which WAS the disaster of a backstory to the 2008 film.  I could see Overlord as a different project in-line with the initial Outpost project … kind of like a back-backstory.  That for me is the only real saving grace for this film!  In the end, it looks like a rip-off mishmash of Outpost and Castle Wolfenstein without paying for the rights to either.

And that’s not even going into the gross historic WWII inaccuracies built into this film — most of which was to make the PC-crowd not loose their self-righteous factless minds.  On the whole, I give this film a Yellow Puss rating.

Good News – There’s no way to make an Overlord 2
… hopefully.

I will add — there are cool special effects shots at the beginning of this film when planes are flying into France and at the end when its star, Jovan Adepo as Boyce, does a one-shot running out of the laboratory/church.

One Shot
When you see this, count your blessings, the film over!

Links

Juan of the Dead (2011)

Juan of the Dead, Juan de los MuertosJuan Of The Dead (AKA Juan de los Muertos) is fun Spanish-Cuban zombie comedy.  If you’re like me, you just gotta appreciate a Z-film that shows its first zombie kill in under three minutes into the story. Oh yeah, it may be a new record!

Without any explanation zombies appear in Cuba and start eating people.  Middle-aged slacker Jaun, along with his fellow small-time crooks and deadbeats, take to the streets of Havana to face an army of the undead.  Emergency news reports are broadcast amid the chaos…  The surge of living-dead have been identified as ‘dissidents’ revolting against the Cuban government.  The regime accuses the USA for the attack.  Everything is under control even when nothing is being done.  Seeing opportunity, Jaun gathers and trains his friends to be zombie killers and starts a business called “Juan Of The Dead — We’ll kill your loved ones”.

For those familiar with the Cuban regime and its people, the movie is a hard critic to both — which is why it was never released in Cuba and apparently was only shown on-screen at film festivals.  Juan Of The Dead attempts to mock every cinematic clichés (daughter hating father, friend about to die, farewell , even Matrix-style fights).  The nuances of Cuban humor can get lost-in-translation to non-Spanish speakers — for example — in one of the most celebrated jokes, Juan is asked to kill a cow but he refuses because it is too dangerous; In Cuba killing a cow is worse crime than killing people.

Zombie film fans will will be pleasantly surprised with this film especially with seeing fun nods to Shaun Of The Dead.  There was one thing I saw in particular that I have seen in another zombie film*.  The film is in Spanish and subtitled — sorry, no over-dubs.  This film is Not Rated, and aside from the zombie gore and violence there is some nudity (including z-film boobs) and adult humor/topics.  Oh — and how do I rate Juan Of The Dead ? … Light Green to full Green.
(*Select this line to read the spoiler –> Underwater zombies walking on the ocean floor that seem to be able to swim up if it means getting a bite … though that bite could come from a shark!  Oh yeah, this was also done in Pirates Of The Caribbean<– all the way to here)

Links

World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries (2011)

World of the Dead, The Zombie Diaries 2, 2011
Remember how the cover for the first film has NOTHING to do with the film? Well, consistency is supposed to be good…

Have you ever had the experience where someone you know excitedly says “Hey, ya gotta see this film!“?  Then once you watch it you’re left thinking “What the heck was that about?”, or worse “There is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with my friend!”  Welcome to to World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2.

Immediately you can tell that this project has a higher budget and is visually more satisfying than the 2006 predecessor.  Then you get into the story and you start to see the problems…

The first thing you notice — as with the original film — is that the DVD cover is once again horribly misleading.  The cover art looks better than the film, and it represents something other than the content of the film.

Field full of zombies
I’m warning you — act like threatening zombies or we’ll shoot you!!!

The zombies feel very non-threatening — even less than in the original film.  The make-up is insufficient, the scares nearly non-existent, and the zombies are often so stiff they would be played better by untrained department store mannequins.  Add to that, when it comes to shooting the zombies I get the impression that the British film makers don’t have a clue as to what firearms sound like anymore (especially in the scene pictured).  The firearm sound effects left me non-pulsed — perhaps they were just the on-location recording of the blanks the actors were firing.

The biggest downfall of the movie…

World of the Dead, The Zombie Diaries 2, 2011
Yep, they should have stuck with this poster as the DVD cover

… aside from the emaciated plot and the you-are-there hand-held cinematography — are some of the specific content choices that film makers Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates included.  Various gangs of survivors prove to be even more vile than the zombies.  This is well summed up in a review by FlickeringMyth.com when they wrote…

“There are a couple of, frankly, unneeded rape scenes (one on a female zombie) that just felt like Bartlett and Gates wanted to do some kind of rape revenge film, but gave up and worked zombies into it”.

Frankly it left this bagpiper & humble amateur zombie-film reviewer astounded.  I cannot recall feeling this disturbed by any zombie film I have previously seen.  This content included a challenged young man bullied into delivering a beating upon one of the primary male characters, and then pushed into committing a graphic rape/murder on one of the female primaries.  I have to wonder where the writer and his co-director think that this was appropriate, or fit within the film!  I also have to wonder about the actors (or even the crew) assuming they saw the script before they agreed to do the film — why would they participate in bringing this film to fruition?

Is there any redemption for this film?

World of the Dead, The Zombie Diaries 2, 2011, gas mask
Me around people who smoke

There are elements to this film that really work — the albeit over-used zombie-trope military element, the military and civilian survivors trying to escape from England, and the guys who ambiguously appear wearing protective suits and gas masks.  However it seems as though Bartlett and Gates thought that their ideas were so great — so sound — that they didn’t think to check their script or finished film with a third party.  And if they did, they didn’t listen to them say “There’s some good stuff here, but over all THIS IS A BAD IDEA.”  Or maybe they just half-assed it and figured this would fill a feature.  In the end, it is as The Daily Mail described the film, it’s an “88 minute waste of electricity”, and I rate it Red Blood.

Seriously, I’m starting to think I ought to make a list titled “Zombie Films To Avoid Watching“.  Do you think I would have this one on it?  YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!

A List Of Words Irrelevant To This Zombie Film
World of the Dead, The Zombie Diaries 2, 2011
At least you see one of these folks in the film — but destroyed city, a massive horde of zombies? Nope nope-nope!
  • Smash hit
  • Phenomenon

Links

pew pew pew
pew pew pew!

Raiders of the Damned (2007)

Raiders of the Damned (2007)As soon as I started watching Raiders of the Damned (2007) I noted a newly-learned familiar stink.  YEP … this film gets rated Red Blood and is on the BagpiperDon’s Zombie Films To Avoid.

This should be an ideal film for me — containing both zombies and Sci-Fi — but this is made by a garbage movie company called The Asylum, which LARGELY JUST RIPS OFF OTHER FILMS.  Once you’ve accidentally seen a few Asylum films, you get familiar with their stink.

Garbage, Garbage, Garbage…

The zombie costumes and weapons are laughable, and their make-up is just plain bad.  The lacking story line is only outdone by the dribbling charactre development — and posturing of hokey military badassedness.  The description sounds like it should have something, but it just isn’t there.

Raiders of the Damned (2007)

When all is said and done, this film too will make no careers of its unknown actors who either can’t act or lack worthy direction, nor will this film win an Oscar … hell, it might be so bad it wouldn’t even win acknowledgement from The Razzies.

Even when it’s bad Z/B-film, for the sake of these reviews and my project I tend to finish a flick even if I am not directly watching it, but I shut this one off 20 minutes in — the people who want to see something that will make SyFy Channel films look good can have the additional 67 minutes.

LINKS

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

PHEW!  For all of my reviews, writing something for The Serpent and the Rainbow is frankly a bit daunting — but let’s do it anyway.  Prepare for a long, drab description in 3 … 2 … 1 …

Synopsis

In 1988, a Harvard doctor by the name of Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) has been hired by a large pharmaceutical corporation to travel to Haiti in 1985 (which is tricky because they don’t supply him with a time machine) to investigate the case of a man who died in 1978 and has apparently returned to life with the aid of a Voodoo drug.  The pharmaceutical corporation wants Dr. Alan to acquire the zombie drug so they can research it; their intent is to mass produce and sell it as a type of “super anesthetic”.  While in Haiti, Dr. Alan hooks up with a brainy local hot chick by the name of Marielle Duchamp (played by Cathy Tyson), then gets mixed up in deception and Voodoo.  Apparently this fictional film is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name.

Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson) doing the Safety Dance … either that or she’s tied up. Who knows … it was the 80s!

Or at least to say, if you have a sense of humor, you can interpret this film that way and write big long run-on sentences, because really who reads all of these reviews anyway?
(Although I was told once that a person read, and had a good laugh, my review of the zombie film “Billy Elliot” — yes, it’s a zombie film.)

So on a more serious note… well, somewhat more serious…

This film was budgeted at $7M and made nearly $20M at the box office, so I don’t know if that makes it good but the marketing was good enough to get people to watch it.  I guess Wes Craven was trying to cash-in on his good name and Nightmare on Elm Street success.  Whatever the case, it kind of looks like an 80s film and it definitely feels like an 80s horror-mystery film.  I wouldn’t suggest going out of your way to watch this, but if you are looking for something to play while you hang out … well, spin it up.  I’d rate this film Yellow Puss.

Links

Black Swan (2010)

Adding this title to this list came with a small debate. A big portion of it is a psychological thriller; its also about an artist making a personal break-through into a different area of their craft. Someone else might call me a dufass saying I missed the point entirely — and maybe I did, but the film is also subjective. To me, it had something to say about working within an art form that has an exacting/purist community surrounding it and breaking through … and that for me is the greatest point of the film.

Black Swan at IMDB and Wikipedia

DIY or DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist (2002)

If you’re an independent artist of any type, you’ll want to see this. At the beginning of the piece the film-maker states his point to project & what he wanted to explore — and over the course of the film I don’t feel that his interviewees proved, represented or developed his point … at all. However, the interviewees speak a lot about the passion behind their work and doing it successfully their way regardless of what “The Industry” indicates.

DIY or DIE at IMDB and Wikipedia

NOTE – The full title of this film is DIY or DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist (AKA DIY or DIE: Burn This DVD)